Well, I’m not really apologizing, I guess. Life is life. But I really didn’t intend to drop off the face of the blogosphere for three-and-a-half months. Nevertheless, that is the reality. So rather than provide an excuse for the lack of posts, let’s do a recap of the time lost…just for those of you still out there reading, or caring.

Probably the biggest news is that we are not going to be going on staff with Wycliffe in the near future. And while I didn’t get all weepy or upset about it at the time, at least not outwardly, it’s hard to say it hasn’t affected me. We are still looking at the future. God is still in control. But this is the first time I’ve blogged in…right, you get the picture.

Um, I’ve watched a lot of anime. It started with getting NetFlix. I watched the entire series of Full Metal Alchemist (both versions). I am almost finished with Bleach. My wife and I are watching School Rumble together (best compared to a high school soap opera, but nevertheless hilarious in my opinion). That started me back interested in Japanese, so I’m studying Japanese. I’ve used it as an opportunity to mess with many of the features of SIL’s FieldWorks application, and have made some decent progress with both the language and the app. Still lots of work, but with the newest release of 7 on my laptop, I’m chugging along.

And my wife is going to Ukraine. I wasn’t going to go originally, since I went last year and we were going to train with Wycliffe in the Fall. That no longer an option, I felt the window open for me to go with Kim, but then the organization we were working with said there were too many people coming. So, me being the low man on the totem pole, I got bumped. But I already was working on Russian to help my wife who was still going, so…yep, working on Russian simultaneously. And trying to keep my wife encouraged that her time will not be wasted. For the first time ever, we picked up a copy of Rosetta Stone. So far, I like it (I think she does, too…). And I like the fact that I’ve done some book study to complement the Rosetta Stone approach…

You might recall that I had been working on French early in the year. That got booted when I started working on Japanese. But, my company recently adjusted priorities, and in the switch-up I now report to someone in France. Woohoo! Back to working on French (without dropping either the Japanese or Russian)… It’s a very high probability that I will get to use what I learn in-country (France, that is). And I went ahead and got Rosetta Stone for French, as well. Happy to say that my time spent studying French early in the year was not wasted, as my progress in Rosetta Stone shows.

Oh, almost forgot to mention that we got a new van (ours died in Florida while on vacation). That was quite the ordeal. We had a desktop computer die, then come back to “life” – but not before we had purchased a new laptop for my wife. And we removed 29 trees from our back yard (25 of them pines 90-130 feet tall). That was an interesting thing to see. Especially since our property, including the house, is only 2/3 of an acre. The trees were really worrisome being so tall, and so close to the house…

So many people give a send-off when they go into blog-hiatus. I was too lazy and worn out (I suppose) to even do that. And I make no guarantees that I am in any full-out blogging mode. I’ve had thoughts that almost brought me back to writing, and they fizzled. But I do hope to spend some more time sharing thoughts on my study in Scripture, on the languages I am working on, on family life, on life in the body. So many things to write about…

One Response to Hello, July.

Thanks for the update. I’ve been too busy to blog lately. Also, I don’t really feel like I have anything I want to share these days. There are things I could share but I’m not sure who would find it interesting. Anyways, enjoyed your post.